


Saltwater

by theroaringseas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: F/M, Post-TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-05 19:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13394337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroaringseas/pseuds/theroaringseas
Summary: “This thing we have is a curse,” Rey breathed bitterly in a cave on a desolate, polar tundra.Post-TLJ where Rey tries to find a way to break the Force bond that ties her to Kylo Ren.





	1. Chapter 1

i.

“This thing we have is a curse,” Rey breathed bitterly in a cave on a desolate, polar tundra.

After she and the rebels fled aboard the Millennium Falcon, they had settled onto a deathly, inhabitable planet that rained ice and comets, far from the nearest sun. The rebels stuck together, built a small, but inoperable base since they would soon flee again to another planet for refuge. Rey hoped the next one had more green.

Despite the temporary sense of security, at times, the Force became relentless, begging her to open the immovable door and pull the tether to see her villain. Rey refused to but her heart felt treacherous as her mind and body were at odds with one another. She wondered if it was her longing for warmth that made her so weak, so needy. The Force would scratch the walls of her mind and cry out for the person on the other end, anyone else. It would try seeping into her dreams, tried connecting them that way. If she so much saw his dark silhouette, gloved hands, back slowly turning to her, (and in the worst of them all- the black helmet that delved so deeply in the impassive), she would then violently rip the tether and resurface to the living world with a case of insomnia.

Night after night, it haunted her and she had to question if it was the Force or Kylo after all.

And did he feel the same?

Hiding the bond proved to be more difficult. She used to pride herself in the honesty she had with the Resistance, with her friends. Family don’t keep things from each other, she would’ve hoped and Leia had become what she would’ve loved in a mother. But nowadays, she could barely look at her in the eye, knowing how much she wanted to see and speak to her son again. Often, Rey would find her breath hitched in clouds that dissipated in the air when she thought she saw Kylo. One day, Finn caught her talking to walls and had become wary of her deliberate distance: the one where she stared into nothing, gazing at nothing, speaking to no one. Rey concentrated on pushing the unseen bond away, but she felt like she was digging a grave in guilt.

 _She isn’t the same,_ Finn noticed, _something’s changed._ They had been apart for a while now and she hadn’t completely opened up about her time with Luke and the island. _Something’s bothering her._

“Hey, Rey!” Finn dropped the task he was assigned to for the moment and caught her in the halls of the base alone. He told her that she can always trust him, that she could tell him anything.

But not this.

Rey smiled and thanked Finn. She loved Finn’s kindness, which transformed itself into her new motive. _I need to do something about this bond._ She knew she needed to go to a quiet place to meet him. To settle this nuisance once and for all and far enough so that no one could see her on her way to the ominous cave in a snowy-veiled mountain. It was at least ten miles away from the rebel base, away from the noise and occasional yelling that marked the rebel’s daily conference on how to prepare to face the recently-appointed Supreme Leader of the First Order. Rey snuck away before dusk as hushed as a snow rabbit, smuggled some heating packets, and strapped on her strongest boots armored with textured soles. BB-8 woke to the sound of her, as the droid always did, and questioned her in binary code. Rey rushed over to cover the main speakers.

“Shhh… Don’t worry, BB-8,” She whispered. “But I need to do this. Alone. Please don’t follow me this time.” She was met with a response of a couple of more quiet beeping. “I’ll come back.” She promised, “I wouldn't abandon you. Never. I just need to be alone for now.” BB-8 made hesitant, affirmative sounds and Rey smiled. “Thank you for understanding. You are a good friend.” She hugged the droid warmly and left her quarters to tread the snowy forest that bore too much resemblance to one where she left her mark Kylo Ren’s face.

Rey remembered the dark blood that fell to taint the soft white ground too clearly. It was on the Starkiller base planet but the only difference was that now she walked this path without fear or a looming darkness. This time, the planet wasn't bent on destroying everything around them into a supernova. Instead, there was tranquility here. Icicles suspended beneath thin, white branches and soon the snowfall would cover up the tracks made by her boot prints before the others would wake up and find her gone. Either way, she didn’t think the conversation would last too long.

By the time Rey entered the dim, crystallized cave, a winter storm brewed up, warning with harsh winds and hail. She mentally chastised herself. There was only way to go: deeper into the cavern until she met a dead end. She took out a flashlight to examine her surroundings. It was small, cramped, and littered with cracked skeletons, skulls, and stones positioned in a circle in the center. There were etchings of an strange, old language onto the walls of the cave. She moved forth slowly and traced the words with her gloved fingertips and analyzed what she could- the format, like a poem. She wished she knew what they meant. Entranced by the beauty of the crystallized stalagmites, she had let her defenses down here. She had left the door unlocked.

“I could tell you what it says,” a low voice snaked its way through her heart like a stake. She turned to see him and her breath came short. Kylo Ren stood in the same black uniform he wore the last time they saw each other; a memory now marred by falling wreckage and a blazing fire. With Snoke’s disassembled body cut cleanly through, broken red Praetorian guards stone-still on the blood-stained floor, and a black-gloved hand outstretched to meet hers. _“It's time to let old things die. Snoke... Skywalker... the Sith... the Jedi... the rebels.”_ The way he said it. He was so sure. But- _“Rey... I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.”_ It was wrong. So wrong. She remembered Finn, Leia, Han.

_Don't do this Ben. Please don't go this way._

**_No, no. You're still holding on! Let go!_ **

Unbidden, she remembered his last words. Word: Please. And the dread she felt build up afterwards. Now, he walked towards her and she froze like the first time, only this time, it wasn’t because of the Force or darkness or any of that. She just looked to him, passing by her with a soft glow, only him- like a ghost and like he’s there. Maybe tangible. He raised his hand to trace her fingers stuck on the wall, a phantom touch and with regret, oddly warm, skin like a kindle. She flinched.

“It’s a poem. A love poem.”

“I don’t want to know.” Rey said abruptly, stiff and sudden. Kylo glanced at her for a second and returned his gaze to wall.

 _"You have captivated me,”_ he reads anyways, _“let me stand trembling before you. Bride-”_

“Ben.” Rey bore her eyes into his, sick with feeling. But try as she might, she couldn’t shake the empathetic link that banished the feeling that ate at her bit by bit every day when they spoke to each other alone.

“You wanted to know.” He said looking to her, “We can’t lie to each other now. Or hide anything it seems.” He was searching for something. They were inches apart, or galaxies apart, and she felt betrayed knowing somewhere inside her wanted to close the distance.

“I didn’t ask you to. And that’s not what I came all the way out here to talk about.”

“What did you want to talk about?” He said but she could see him gulp. It was that feeling again. She saw him tense up as if preparing to bear the words.

“You know.” She spared him. _Fear._ His hand left hers, as did the calm.

“You should’ve joined me.”

“I saw you turn. In my vision, _I swear._ ”

“There’s still time-”

“Never.”

“Where are you?”

“Why?” she scoffed. “So you could kill me now too?” The words stung her eyes. Her hands balled up in fists. Luke had warned her in a dream. A cry tore from her stomach as his soul reappeared as a ghost. He told her to beware. “The last Jedi.” She felt shame blossom in his naval. She could feel Ren putting on a mask though his helmet was not there. They circled each other, slow. His languid walk, her alarmed expression, it was all too familiar now. Back to square one, but not quite.

“I don’t want to. But if you continue flirting with the Resistance, I may have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You’re the leader now, aren’t you? You can have what you want.” Rey bit back, knowing so well what a lie it was. “This thing we have, Ben, is a curse. I want it gone. That’s what I came here for.” His eyebrows knitted in confusion. He set his jaw and heart alit, tried to remain stoic though Rey knew it was dumping an open wound in salt water. “All it does is make this harder than it needs to be. You know this. You feel it too. You said it yourself: _Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to._ ”

“I didn’t mean this.”

“It holds us both back. You must realize that.”

“I’ve _tried_ to get rid of it!” He yelled. An icicle fell and shattered onto the ground floor of the tunnel, scattered across their feet. “When it became a risk to the First Order. It was the first thing I tried to do. But the Force cannot be _bent_. Cannot be tamed. It just demands. And it’s a two-way street.” Rey’s mouth fell open. Saliva turned cool. Words would not be strewn forward, dancing around this feeling. Every time the Force brought him to her, she could not scrub the image of a sad Ben Solo, the one drawn from the light, the one that killed Snoke and handed her his murder weapon to fight alongside each other.

She found it humorous that though it was life or death, she felt secure for the first time. He reaped the loneliness and fear she felt on that island with Luke, saw a mirror-image of herself, and what other residue was left but compassion. She wondered if he was suffocating too this way.

“Why did it have to be you though?” She groaned, falling back into one of the stones, rubbing her eyes. The cold had gotten the better of her, her hands felt numb again against her flush face. Her body tried to encase the heat by bringing her knees in further, but there was nothing left to feel but his presence. She looked into one of the crystalized rocks embedded into the wall and saw her reflection red, pale, almost translucent. She fell into a coughing fit. Snow blew in from the storm outside and settled on his black boot. He looked down at it.

“Where are you?” He said again. She refused to speak to him until he left, as if to say: _I’m not so foolish to give my location away._

“Leave me alone,” she told him. _This was a mistake,_ she thought. She rummaged through her bag for a heating pack and rubbed it till warmth emanated from the cloth but it was not enough. He did not leave.

“You’re cold, Rey.” To her dismay.

ii.

 

“I am cold,” Rey huffs out. _So cold,_ she thinks. _Is this it for me? Is this how the last Jedi dies? In an unknown cave, on an unknown planet, with an unknown man as her witness?_ Oh, but she does know him. She knows him well, from the way his brown eyes bore into hers to the quiver of his lip when asks something of her. She also knows him a murderer. Ben is saying something, but she hears murmurs, zoned out on some white horizon. He yells something now and it’s lost on her. Drowsiness and pain clouded her senses. Now she wishes BB-8 had followed her, or someone noticed her footsteps.

“Then why did you come here?” Ben raises his voice as it bellows off the walls, resonating muffled and blurry in Rey’s ears. “Why did the Force connect us? _So I could watch you die!”_ he hisses. He shows an ugly sneer towards her, leans to her, hovering just above her head with that worried expression painted on his face. She couldn’t tell whether it was her eyes were watery or his or if it was sincere anymore. “Where are you, Rey? Where are you?” His eyes are mad, panicking, brimming with a tyrant’s eyes. She could be afraid but she feels a bit sleepy and closes her eyes in response. For a moment, she thinks there is warmth somewhere and she might make it out here alive. She sifts through the Force for an earthly reimagining and feels how the cold compliments the ice-encased water, how the darkness found shelter in the depths of this planet’s oceans and abysses. It wouldn’t dare exceed those boundaries. Yet, Kylo disturbs this balance. He should’ve known his limits too. A good Jedi knows their limits. Sith do not- the Sith liked to break these walls and create chaos from order and then claim that that’s _real order._

Even now, Luke’s history lessons ventures off and on the cabinets of memory in her mind. If she read herself the stories and legends she remembered, she could forget the drastic dropping of temperature inside her body. She could forget the gradual numbness and the worrying. But a dagger shoots through the halls of her mind. A sharpness invaded with ease, asking for no permission, or questions, carving around the edges. It searches the corridors, gravitating towards her most recent pockets of memories. Avoided the past memories, gave it no mind. _Resist._ She felt a disturbance make a surgical incision on the door that led to the day the rebels landed on this godforsaken planet. _Resist._ Quaked at the memory of the General giving orders and wrenched the audio. A name. It was looking for a name. _No,_ Rey cried. _No, no._ She pleads. The dagger ignores her. It dug in deeper till it found what it wanted.

_“We will leave Siystea in two days time,” the General had said with confidence. “Make sure no one leaves and treat those who get hypothermia immediately. We can’t afford to lose any more.”_

Rey hadn’t thought she even had such a memory. She was speaking to Rose in the midst. It was overheard in passing while she, Rose, and Finn were getting their items in order. It wasn’t even a memory she could’ve dissected, it was nothing to her.

And everything to the First Order.

The feeling of failure overwhelmed Rey when she remembered the Stormtroopers shooting at every living being on Takodana, every runaway, every person. The least she could do was warn them. Warn them before-

 _“Set our course to Siystea.”_ She heard his voice echo all around before passing out. _“Use the hyperdrive. Now!”_ The darkness in her sleep granted her solace, a chance that maybe she was dreaming all along. _Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?_ she thinks as the lethargy takes over.

The door closes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TLJ ruined me and my crops. But inspired me to practice on my writing style so here's this mess. Also kinda embarrassing but that's a real quote I used for the poem. It's the world's oldest love poem. I found it beautiful. Plus Kylo totally seems like the type to read angsty-love poems lmao. Any feedback is appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

i.

Hux became wary of Kylo Ren.

Normally, he would argue with Ren over every plan, every detail he made to ensure success. But for now, Hux resorted back to a passive role, compliant and watchful as ever. It proved rewarding in strategizing though it tempted his patience too bothersome. He found himself pinching the bridge of his nose and exasperated far too often. His red hair kept unkempt, his coal-black uniform with creases, and a blue, prominent vein near now-visible on his neck. _How could he have known where the Rebel’s girl was hiding?_ _A couple of galaxies beyond us, on Siystea of all places._ Hux never trusted the Force to begin with, deemed it a remnant of the past. Yes, it could be useful at times. But even the power of it couldn’t save their former Supreme Leader Snoke from being sliced clean and in half by… the girl.

That _puny_ girl slaughtered Snoke and all the Praetorian guards, but somehow Kylo Ren was left with minor injuries and a disheveled demeanor. It all reeked of traitorous rage, reeked of venom and blood and a moment of frailty. But with no proof to confirm his suspicions, he followed Ren’s orders without complaint, or else he imagined himself choked to death for real. Ren seemed more on edge than usual. After the fight with projected figure of Skywalker, Ren kept to his quarters in quiet, demanded time to be alone so he could plan the First Order’s next step to destroy the Resistance. And though they escaped, Hux suspected Kylo had grown soft on the girl. Snoke had these premonitions, reminded him constantly of where his loyalties lied, as if it was edging on the light, faltering in doubt like everything else he did.

He was not fit to rule, is what Hux concluded. _Weak, spineless, treacherous fucker._  He seethed in this long wait, doing nothing, waiting for their newly self-appointed _Supreme Leader_ to make up his mind for days. Hux stormed through the halls with his fists clenched and his eyes irate. The Stormtroopers avoided his gaze, even those who had questions about protocol for him decided to approach him another time. His nostrils flared as he found himself outside Ren’s steel-grey quarters and the door slammed open without warning a black arm and hands outstretched on the metal-grey center. Startled, Hux found an even more shaken, breathless Ren, eyes inflamed, a mirror image of his anger.

Speak of the devil.

“Inform the pilots. Set our course to Siystea. Use the hyperdrive.” Kylo told Hux, reserving his words heavily. Hux stared at him with his jaw set and gulped with revulsion. He loathed the fear that seemed to creep up on him when Ren was like this. He’s never feared Ren before. _Never,_ until Snoke dropped dead so helpless with that sickly face of morbid shock, an oracle who couldn’t predict his pupil well enough. It was this instability Ren conjured up with his abrupt orders and demands, the audacity to face Skywalker man-to-man in combat, and the insurmountable extent to his rage that worried Hux of the First Order’s fate. He could almost see it vanquished, all that he’s worked for. Ren’s left eye twitched at Hux’s non-response. _“Now!”_ He reminded, waking Hux up from his non-Force induced trance. He picked up his comm unit in an instant with an iron-grip.

“Connect me to flight deck.” Hux said in a rush as Ren stormed off down the hall to who knows where.

 

ii.

 

When Rey woke up, she was drowsy and unaware of her environment. Her body hung in lukewarm water- _no,_ not water, but some other substance that clung to her skin like slime and wrapped around herself like she was suspended under an orange, heated sea. She was nude, she noticed, with the exception of a white band that wrapped around her waist with a number unit that indicated her body temperature and a helmet that held tight around her head to her neck, providing oxygen and clear air to her in this orange haze. When she saw the strangeness of her situation, she jerked forward, frantically looking left, then right at nothing. She saw that orange (turning red sometimes and back to orange in spots) substance obscured her view beyond the glass.  

She manuevered herself forward and rubbed on the glass hard, eyes squinting in frustration. The last thing she remembered was of Kylo Ren’s Force-appearance speaking to her in that cave… and the knife he beckoned with alarm. She began hyperventilating, her heart growing heavier. She gulped, hoping that she hadn’t given the Resistance away, wrapped like gift wrap to someone so cruel enough to kill his own father for his master, cruel enough to kill his own master for…

Pity is what she felt for Kylo, once. She swore it wouldn’t happen again, but didn’t feel the gravity of her own oath. The orange fog smudged, creating long streaks across her hand but now the glass was semi-clear to her eyes. It was a thin view, but through her glass lens, she saw her nightmares come to life as the white figures became Stormtroopers and doctors in white lab coats, some masked at the door, some unmasked by stations that seemed to deal with charts and graphs of vitals rising and decreasing. Her vitals.

Rey bit her lip with her hands pressed against the warm glass. She wanted out. She wanted her questions answered. Even felt like crying from the trapped quiet. She felt as though she were still on Jakku, waiting. She yelled out, but to no avail- the Stormtroopers gave no sign that they knew she was awake. She thought of banging on the glass, but then retracted that first instinct and remembered she was at their mercy, imprisoned in this glass, cylindrical encasement that could distribute any drug that would knock her out at the press of a button. Her hands soon turned to fists at the silence and she felt like a lab rat being tested, or a sick person quarantined _and_ tested. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. She looked around the room as the others were busied themselves and eyed a box of her clothes- her lightsaber not amongst them. Then another idea emerged.

Rey held her breath, assumed if they were testing her vitals, then they’d notice the shortage of carbon dioxide. She felt the pressure of oxygen fill up more and more in her helmet and the desire to breathe becoming painful. Soon, heads turned to the cylindrical container in a panic. She heard loud murmurs through the glass, heard a plug pulled, and the orange substance was soon drained down slowly but surely. She shut her eyes, her chest burned, and when one of the personnel opened a hatch to the medical containment unit, they hastily removed her mask.

She breathed in a gallon and kicked the person in a lab coat hunched over her figure. Rey turned to the other medic who had her hand hovering over the red emergency button and stretched her hand out. In a pit of concentration, the doctor froze with a face of horror and confusion. Rey imagined it was the same face she wore when Kylo used this on her in the forest when they first met. Everyone froze, the guards aimed their weapons on Rey. She stood up, still. Glancing around the room, she closed her eyes.

“You will all fall asleep for an hour,” she told all. Pointing to the medic woman she held bound by the Force, “except you,” she added, unfaltering. The expressions of worry, anticipation, and anger melted away for those unmasked. _“We will all fall asleep for an hour,”_ they repeated back as their bodies fell with a thud to the floor. Some heads fell back into their seats comfortably. Rey winced.

“Actually make that two hours,” she amended, unsure if they would listened.

 _“Two.”_ In unison, but in a murmur. Rey smiled triumphantly, and then made her way over their fallen figures to the brown box with the winter clothes the Resistance provided for her. She held them to her face and inhaled the familiar scent. It was what she’d imagine home to be like. She ripped the white medical band off her waist, along with its wires, and threw it aside. The woman she compelled awake just stared at her still with a conflicted expression while Rey began dressing her undergarments. She twitched, but could move no more than a centimeter out of place.

“Kylo Ren ordered to have you sedated,” she hissed out. “He said not to let you escape under any circumstance.” Rey turned to her, pensively. The woman had dark long hair tied up in a bun and angry olive eyes. All her muscles pulled taut as she struggled in vain.

“Well, Kylo Ren will just have to deal with the consequences. Where are my friends?”

“Friends?”

“The rest of the Resistance? You caught me, so…” the words died on their way out. Perhaps they were already slaughtered mercilessly. Maybe she was the only one left. She pulled her trousers and fastened the belt with the swelling of unease reaching up to her boiling point.

“We only detained you. I don’t recall anyone else brought aboard this ship. I can’t say for certain.” She scrunched her nose distastefully. “Could you let me go now?”

“I hate this more than you do. But no,” she dressed in her plain-grey long-sleeved shirt. “I can’t risk it and I need to find a way out of here. Do you have a map by any chance?” A solemn silence drifted over the two. “A map,” Rey repeated.

“You can’t leave.” The medic said quietly, her lip quivering.

“I can do whatever I want.” Rey replied, strapping on her boots and leaving her winter coat on the counter. It was too heavy and a liability right now.

“If you leave,” the woman trembled, “he’ll kill me.” Rey paused in place, and looked at the woman on the verge of sobbing. “It was job was to keep you here. To press that _damn_ button, and I couldn’t even do that right.”

“He wouldn’t,” Rey said softly.

“You don’t know him.” The medic spat. Rey cursed, forgetting his empathy only extended so far. She took a minute to think, knew she would keep steadfast in her goal, but not to the detriment of others. Tears already sprung from the medic’s eyes. Rey bit the inside of her lip and released the woman from her grasp. The woman fell, unbound by the Force, and looked to Rey. She knew this was a bad idea, but it was also the most humane one.

“Then, it seems like we’ll have to leave together,” Rey chimed to her.

 

iii.

 

Kylo Ren used to be good at plotting; used to be well-known for his take-down schemes for the Resistance that left them running on the defense for years. Snoke awarded him by promoting him above Hux’s rank. He had an innate sense for their next step and part of him loathed that he may have owed it to his legacy. Like mother, like son.

Even more so, he grew a bitter taste in his mouth for merely knowing how their side would handle things. A call to the light, yet again. Yet even with all that, he knew his latest move was a bad idea as he sat alone in his room to contemplate. Rey was a bad omen all by herself, tempting sails and blasting cannons, and he was still drawn to her. So, couldn’t bring Rey in here, seeing her alone was a ruination for the First Order. Plus the room was too dark, painted in only black and red, which he somehow knew was her least favorite color.

 _I want to see her,_ he thought like a hymn, _I need a plan first._ Nothing was going as conducted in the First Order- everything went awry and spat back in his face. First Snoke, Rey, then he lost it at Luke. It would so easy to consult with Snoke, so easy to ask for guidance, but he threw that all away for his (vague) vision of the future- a future he imagined with Rey. He recalls, shamefully, dreaming of her at night more often than not since their encounter. So when Snoke told him to kill these dreams, he saw the truth in what kind of vermin he really was. Soul-sucking, clinging to the past. He would’ve never been what Palpatine was desperate for. He wanted the old legends of the Jedi and the Sith, the ongoing battle, the _idiots_ of the Rebellion gone in a flash of blind lightning. He wanted Rey to say _yes_ and clasp hands like chains.

He pushed the memory back, as it reverberated in his chest soundly, indignation digging at his core. Learning to control his anger wasn’t one of the lessons Luke succeeded in teaching him, but redirecting his anger onto helpless inanimate objects would do. Still, he shoved the memory down further before it would rise into a prelude for war. Rey ignited that flame. Another part of him (a more reasonable part) already guessed at the possible outcomes pulling the tether again would have: Rey would shut him out.

Now that she was stronger and more cognizant of her circumstances, it only became a matter of time when she would be able to control this aspect of the Force Bond. It took Kylo weeks to learn and harness. He felt owed gratitude and yet, deemed himself unworthy of her compassion. He spared the Resistance so it would give him leverage, ordered the First Order fleet to leave as soon as he found an frozen, dying Rey on a slab of ice rock. The Stormtroopers believed his Force powers allowed him to be all-knowing with the specificity of the location, which in any case, is better than the real reason. Tenfold.

 _She should stay,_ he thought. But the Force messaged how Rey felt very vividly to him. He kept replaying the scene from the ship. Him- _kneeling_ before her, and though he never verbally said so, he thought his plea would be enough. The vortex of going through space alone, hearing the engine hum at night, ruminating in black gave him a migraine- but now it was littered with her. She planted that seed of doubt that made it so easy for the light to invade through. So in that pit of spiteful severance, that resolution, he pulled the chain that connected them both, wading through a Force as confused as he. There he saw her, not restrained in the medical facility of the First Order ship, not in her dreams, but running with someone else (blurred and unrecognizable). When she turned a corner and saw him, she staggered backwards, shaken. _What,_ he heard the other person who followed Rey, _what’s wrong? There’s nothing there._

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kylo glowered, standing up from his bed, walking a few steps to her. She looked pale, jaw-dropped and flushed, and that irate vibrancy was better than her frozen death on a hell like Siystea. Her brown hair fell straight back, still wet from the healing solution no doubt. She dropped the blaster from her hand as it clunked onto the steel floor.

“How do I shut this thing off?” Rey muttered, “How, how, how…” she took a few steps forward, towards him. “It ruins everything,” she said as she waved her hands through the air like she were dispersing gas exhaustion spun in her face instead. “There must be-” one of her hands touched his chest and Kylo caught his breath a little stricken. He caught her hand in a tight grip.

“You’re still on _my_ ship,” he reminded her. “As long as I know that, you can’t go anywhere.” She gritted her teeth and tried to reel herself back. The other person with her hissed, _Rey, we need to leave. I hear footsteps._ And just like that, Rey kicked upwards inbetween his legs and he let go to crouch in pain. He forgot how real this was and how it could surge him back to the reality of his dim bedroom. He groaned hard on the ground of room as her image faded. Kylo clenched his jaw, feeling heat boiling over his body, bursting from its former arrest. He slammed his fist into a dark dresser to his right, a wicked crack forming around his black glove. The jagged, ebony wooden pieces fell onto his hand and the rest on the marble tiled floor.

 

iv.

 

 _“GUARDS!”_ was the last wail ringing in Rey’s ears when the bond closed herself from Kylo. That’s what it did. It came and went like the wind. As far as she knew, provocation was the only other way to disconnect them. Sometimes she felt like the Force was not some mystical power that only a few could master, but something alive and pulsating like a heartbeat. She’s heard it been described as many things, but the bond with Kylo was something unheard of. She remembers poring over old books kept in the space shuttle with nothing to describe this phenomenon and she figured he had a better grasp on it than she had. Kylo’s yell sent a tremor through her, panic surged into her eyes and the floor, the walls, the woman (whose name she learned was Aynara) blurred in her vision. Rey’s palm burned too, she stared at it.

This disarray made Ayna’s shoulders fall, _why did I entrust my safety to a lowlife scavenger, who is at most an amateur Force user?_ Though she would never admit it outloud, Ayna was certain the future fell into different hands. With less and less children born Force-sensitive per year, and the rise of the industrial intergalactic war regime, there was no doubt in her mind that this was just an ancient power meant to fade away with time. There was no place for a remnant of the past for the First Order. The myths and legends glorified what was a dying art, an art that nearly killed her. Rey saw Ayna’s exasperation, so Rey squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and bolted. She grabbed Ayna’s hand, the blaster she had dropped earlier, and ran.

“He saw us,” Rey confessed quietly, “he knows I broke out.”

“W-wha… _but how?_ ” Ayna cried. “Does he know I’m with you?”

“Uh- um. The Force. And I don’t know.” Rey said as they hid between two machines, until the guards passed by the hall. When they passed, Ayna glared at Rey, _“What do you mean you don’t know, you lowlife?_ If it weren’t for you- _”_

“We don’t have time, we have to find an escape pod!” Rey whispered harshly. “Where are they?” Ayna groaned, rolling her eyes.

“In the lower deck, East department. Hard to miss. They’re just pods upon pods stacked above one another in case we need to evacuate immediately.” Ayna said.

Rey laughed hollowly, “when has the First Order ever needed to evacuate their main vessel?”

“Well, Former Supreme Leader Snoke thought it was a good idea to have an self-destruct sequence, in case of extreme emergenc- _what are you so happy for?”_ Ayna replied deadpanned. Rey grinned widely, it gave Ayna the incentive that she was younger than her. But only by a few years.

“Because,” Rey’s hands curled in adoration, like she wanted to hug someone. “That is the _perfect_ plan the Resistance needs and no one has to die. We can still one in the midst. Oh, General Leia would love this.”

“Ah, and just what would the General love? Didn’t hear that last part.” A voice to their right spoke, horrible, raked with a sadism and a cruel apathy.  Rey twitched, her wide smile falling into a zip-line. Ayna- the same, tight-lipped and gone ghost-pale. They turned to find General Hux with a sharp raised brow, unamused. He held a frown laced in snide disgust and a keen eye. A couple of Stormtroopers leagued behind him in order with their weapons aimed at  two women. Outnumbered and in a less than open space, the two were towered over by Hux, casting a long, dark shadow over them. “A traitor and a murderer, under my roof. Lucky me,” he surveyed. “It seems like the scavenger feels better, don’t you? You had our Supreme Leader _so_ worried after all.”

Rey did not make a sound.

“Drop your weapon.” He ordered.  Rey hesitated, so Hux leaned further and spoke using lower tone. “Listen, I don’t have time for games. There is no trial for those who murder the Supreme Leader. There is no trial for Resistance-sympathizers, much less for members. I will have you and your friend cut at the throat _right now_ if you do not comply. You think you’re the only Resistance scum we found?” He laughed, harrowing and crude. “Unfortunately, the ones we found do not know what happened in the throne room. They serve no use to us. So unless you want the firing squad to practice their aim at them, I suggest you-”

She dropped the blaster. It clattered harsh, and harsher. Slow and unrelenting.

She felt like stone.

“ _Good._ I think it’s time for an interrogation. Ren failed once. We won’t make that mistake again. Chain them and send them to the E-block.” Hux ordered as the Stormtroopers held out the open metal-white cuffs and moved forward to cuff the two. “Extra tight, please.” He added. Rey was in no doubt in her mind that these would leave marks, if not bruises if they ever got them off.

“General Hux. Should I inform the Supreme Leader immediately?” Asked one of the Stormtroopers with their blaster still aimed at Rey and Ayna.

“Don’t inform Ren just yet,” Hux said. “I don’t know what it is about this scavenger girl but she confuses him. It is in the First Order’s best interest to wait a bit. Not long. But long enough so I can find out what exactly is going on.” The Stormtrooper looked at him for a while, then nodded affirmatively. When they finished arresting the two women, they marched their way to the nearest elevator and set their destination to what would seem like the basement. Either way, the chill Rey felt this time as they were being lowered and lowered in front of the First Order General was nothing like the cold on Siystea. Her eyes stung a bit as her cuffs sank into her skin and warred with her wrist bones.

At least on Siystea, she was well-prepared, well-aware, and death hadn’t felt so alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so honestly. There originally wasn't going to be a chapter two. But the lovely response I got from the last chapter inspired me to write more, so thank you so much! ^^ I didn't know I had it in me and I gushed about it to everyone. It's great writing practice for me. Love to hear what works and doesn't work. I'll try to update consistently from now on.


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